Shoppertainment, lifestyle ctr, in our own backyard

at this point, I'm not sure if the nomenclature is really all that important. I forget that we are surrounded by these said structures - they're not in far-flung places. Like any girl, I like my outlet shopping, but the phenomenon of experiential shopping + lowbrow (outlets) + highbrow (premium goods) is mutating, and Lisa Selin Davis who has been featured on these pages offers a critical analysis of American Manhasset Mall in Long Island for Plenty. She writes

The idea is to build community, to recreate the public, lively nature of a real downtown. But this is, of course, an illusion. The "street" is very much maintained by a private entity, and exclusivity is integral to the lifestyle center. If the three-level malls of the 1990s went from low- to high-brow, a sort of cruise ship model with the steerage-class cheapo stores at the bottom level and the high-end boutiques at the top, then the lifestyle center goes a step further, excluding the steerage class altogether. It's a kind of shopping segregation; affluence, after all, is one of the ICSC's main criteria for a lifestyle center.

All of this goodness via theboxtank.